The Dehumanization Of Slave Life

Throughout history, slaves were never fully understood or studied because despite the abolishment of slavery, these people were not viewed as human until fairly recently. This mindset conveys the dehumanization that slaves have experienced for decades. Now, historians have learned the extent of the dreadful lifestyle that slaves led. Eugene Genovese wrote, in his novel, The World the Slaves Made, that overall, the only goodness in slaves’ lives was self-made. Although slaves served their masters six days of the week, they spent the seventh day providing food for themselves and their families. Thus, the work of a slave was never-ending. Additionally, family life was extremely important to slaves because their community was their only solace …show more content…
Another important aspect to slave life was literacy. Only ten percent of slaves were literate because the law forbade all people forbidden to teach a slave to read or write. Therefore, slaves sought after education, but rarely succeeded in receiving it. Overall, slaves lived an unstable, self-supported life, completely dominated by their masters and mistresses. In Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs tells an autobiographical tale, under the pseudonym, Linda Brent, in order to illustrate the hardships of slavery. Not only does Jacobs expand upon the horrors of the toxic and violent relationship between slave and master, but she, also, depicts life specifically for a female slave. For Jacobs, life as a slave was profoundly dissimilar to others’ experiences because she was a mother. Her unbreakable bond with her family, and especially her children concurrently gave her life purpose and distress. Motherhood, girlhood, and enslavement came together to give Jacobs a fundamental lack of control throughout her entire …show more content…
Slaves completely lacked any rights or control over their lives. One can easily identify the differences between a white worker and a slave by comparing Harriet Hanson Robinson and Harriet Jacobs. Robinson was born into a working class family, and thus, had to work in the mills as a child. Although she was a child worker, she worked as a doffer, who only had to work about fifteen minutes out of every hour. As she grew older, Robinson worked sunrise to sunset for fourteen hours a day. Although Jacobs had about the same work hours, her work extended past this time. When Jacobs was not serving her master, she had to tend to her children and her family. Additionally, whites and blacks did not have the same opportunities for education. While it was illegal to teach a slave reading and writing, Harriet Robinson was allowed to participate in Sabbath school every Sunday. This conveys the mindset of America at the time. Although both women were workers, Harriet Robinson was exceedingly more respected than any slave because she was white. Harriet Jacobs makes racism evident in her book when she mentions traveling to the north. She mentions that colored people had to ride in a disgusting train car behind the white people, and it disappointed her that “the north aped the customs of slavery”. 7 Thus, although the north was progressive in their abolishment of slavery, they still treated black people as